Holocaust center unveils new exhibition after $31 million renovation

Focus is on those who experienced the Holocaust, putting a spotlight on survivors who made Michigan their home after WWII

The end of the story is well known. Six million Jews were systematically killed by the Nazi German regime, its allies and collaborators throughout Europe between 1933 and 1945.

This Sunday, however, instead of telling the story from the traditional didactic approach, The Zekelman Holocaust Center (The HC) in Farmington Hills will unveil a new exhibit with a fresh perspective — centering the voices of those who experienced the Holocaust while highlighting survivors who made Michigan their home after World War II.

The reopening of the exhibit marks a significant milestone in The HC’s $31 million transformation and renovation project and aligns with Saturday’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“We wanted to make sure we were telling the story with the latest information and not from the perpetrators’ view,” said Ruth Bergman, director of education and part of the team that assembled the new exhibit.

Eli Mayerfeld concurred. “Memorializing the 6 million is the foundation of all of our activities,” said the CEO of The HC.

“The greatest differentiating factor between the original and the new exhibit is the centering of the voices of those who experienced the Holocaust. Throughout the exhibit, visitors will hear the personal stories of those who survived the Holocaust and rebuilt their lives in Michigan after the war. By localizing the history from the perspective of those who lived it, rather than those who perpetrated it, we are showing that the Holocaust did not happen so long ago or so far away.”

Mayerfeld said the decision to undertake this extensive renovation stems from The HC’s recognition of the urgency to ensure the stories and experiences of Holocaust survivors remain accessible to future generations.

“As the population of survivors diminishes, The HC is acutely aware of the need to adapt its exhibits to meet the evolving needs of present and future visitors,” Mayerfeld said.

It also comes at a critical time.

“The Anti-Defamation League reports a 337% increase in antisemitic attacks compared to last year, much of it coming after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists whose charter calls for the extermination of Jews,” according to The Center.

“Rhetoric and propaganda defame the individual and the group, and when sanctioned by the state, lay the groundwork for genocide,” Mayerfeld said. “Learning about the Holocaust helps visitors understand the potential consequences of antisemitism, and how to counter it today.”

Sunday’s opening is free to the public. At its start is a film that is both moving and empowering.

“We don’t tell people how to act, only to act,” Bergman said. “Our goal here is to give people the tools to understand what they’re seeing and be empowered to stand up and do something about it.”

As visitors will see, life before National Socialism or Nazism as coined by opponents took control of the country in 1933, Jewish people enjoyed life along with their German neighbors, schoolmates and business associates.

“There was great diversity among German people,” Bergman said, be it those living in urban, suburban or rural areas.

However, antisemitism was always looming.

Once Nazism took over, it surfaced in the form of restrictions or laws prohibiting Jews from certain aspects of society such as attending school, enjoying recreational activities, working in shops, factories and businesses and propaganda aimed at turning Germans against their friends and neighbors.

“You heard it and saw it all around you,” said Margot Shillig, a local Holocaust survivor recalling the propaganda she witnessed. “Everything was against the Jews. I remember a good relative of ours had a little newspaper kiosk where they sell papers, and of course, there was that really nasty rag, ‘Der Sturmer’ (The Stormer).”

The most notorious antisemitic newspaper controlled by the Nazi regime was known for publishing terrible pictures and lurid tales of Jews. It also aided in spreading propaganda among Germany’s youth through its publication of children’s books, like “The Poisonous Mushroom,” which led children to believe Jews were bad people, like bad poisonous mushrooms.

Such examples show how propaganda works while raising broader questions about the complicity of society, as the book not only required a publisher, but author, illustrator and audience.

Mass media and propaganda were one part of the exhibit that garnered the attention of students from Goodrich Middle School, who toured the new exhibit Monday. Willow Hokett, who led the tour, said they had 3,000 young visitors in December and have 20,000 more booked in the coming weeks.

“This is an opportunity to learn about one of the most devastating and important events in world history,” Bergman said.

Visitors who are familiar with the former exhibit will encounter new spaces shaped by the philosophy and mission of the redesign.

“The area that used to be the Abyss is now called People and Possessions. It features artifacts that represent the several types of loss people experienced at the hands of the Nazis,” Mulder said. “For example, there are wedding rings found by U.S. soldiers in Dachau. We use the object along with archival footage from before and after the Holocaust, to help our visitors understand that people lost their material items, but they also lost their partners, families and communities.”

Mark Mulder, director of curatorial affairs and part of the team that designed the new core exhibit, said the way they center Holocaust victims and survivors, making each topic such as propaganda personal to individuals is a unique approach for a Holocaust museum. “Further, our commitment to making sure the unique experiences of women are given equal attention is something that we’re proud of,” Mulder said.

Women who survived the Holocaust along with photographs, film and other achieved material provide an often untold perspective on how different the experience was for them, just because they were women.

Among the many photographs in the exhibit, many taken by Nazis themselves, is that of a young woman. She is shown lifting her skirt to reveal the scar left by the experiment the Nazis did on her.

As Bergman pointed out, she could have been shot dead just posing for the photo, but wanted evidence of the atrocities that were inflicted on her and other women in the concentration camps.

One of the many questions that people ask about the Holocaust is why didn’t the Jewish people leave the country? Why didn’t they fight back?

As visitors will see, many of them had nowhere to go nor the money to finance such a trip and they did fight back, against impossible odds. There were ghetto uprisings, resistant groups, social organizations working to help those fleeing capture and even those who were imprisoned in camps found a way to tell their story.

The real question, center officials said, should be how could the world let this happen?